


hope is the thing with feathers

by bellafarallones



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Violence, Missing Persons, Mothman, References to violence/death, fruit snacks, references to horrible crimes although nothing is graphic and indrid doesn't do anything, the missing persons cases referenced are all made up, violation of the fourth amendment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones
Summary: Indrid used his powers to resolve every missing-person case since 1950 in five states.That was why Stern was here, in the isolated mountain town of Kepler, West Virginia, staring at a campsite payphone. This was the phone that had been used by someone whom the FBI had reason to believe was the most prolific serial killer in American history.
Relationships: Indrid Cold & Agent Stern
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	hope is the thing with feathers

**Author's Note:**

> so i read The Cold Vanish by Jon Billman which is about the terrifying numbers of people who go missing in the wilderness in the united states and. between indrid and barclay, monongahela should be statistically remarkable by the fact that nobody ever goes missing there for long. 
> 
> i know this isn't my usual fare but fear not i do simp for indrid cold with my whole heart and it comes through

It was 10:54 PM, Central Standard Time, and there was a call to the Indiana Crimestoppers Tipline. 

_ Hello, _ said a pleasant voice.  _ The remains of Siyana Murray are in the northwest corner of the basement at 1254 Woodland Court, about, hm, eighteen inches below the concrete.  _

_ Are you writing this down?  _

_ The remains of Ahmed Woodley are in Lake Michigan, unfortunately, and will not wash up until August 24th, 2034, at the 55th Street beach in Chicago.  _

_ The remains of Annabelle Rich are buried underneath the big rosebush in the backyard of 821 West Street.  _

_ The remains of Rahul Wheeler are six and a half miles northwest of the Big Oaks trailhead, in an orange tent. Can’t miss it.  _

and so on, and so on. 

The anonymous caller listed every person who’d been reported missing in the state of Indiana since 1950. The call lasted seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds.

It was 11:12 PM, Central Standard Time, and there was a call to the Illinois Crimestoppers Tipline.

_ Hello,  _ said the same pleasant voice.  _ The remains of - _

\--

Agent Joseph Stern had listened to the recordings a hundred times, imagining what the person on the other end of the phone might look like. It was the voice of a man, or a particularly deep-voiced woman, and the caller sounded like they were smiling. 

Five states had received calls that night. Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Ohio, and Tennessee. 

All of the tips had panned out. Rahul Wheeler’s parents got to bury their son. The former husband of Siyana Murray had been indicted for her murder. 

But the fact remained that whoever the caller had been, whatever relief they provided for the families of the missing, they knew too much to be innocent.

All five calls had come from the same number. That was why Stern was here, in the isolated mountain town of Kepler, West Virginia, staring at a campsite payphone. This was the phone that had been used by someone whom the FBI had reason to believe was the most prolific serial killer in American history. 

He dusted for fingerprints without much hope of finding any. He was almost done when a voice at his shoulder made him jump. “It rained yesterday.”

Stern whirled around to see a man with white hair and reflective red glasses standing a little too close to him. “What?”

“It rained yesterday,” he repeated. His voice was lilting, unaccented. “So you probably won’t get much off the phone.”

Joseph looked around. There was only the one RV parked here besides his own car. “Do you -”

“-live here? Yes.”

Joseph groped in the inside pocket of his jacket for his badge and showed it to the stranger. “Agent Joseph Stern, FBI. Do you mind if I-”

“-ask you a few questions? Of course not. My name is Indrid Cold. I am the only person living here, yes, and I have been for the past three and a bit months. Is that all you were going to ask?” Indrid tilted his head.

Joseph’s throat went rather dry. He’d heard about killers like this. Brazen ones. Ones who liked to taunt the police. Indrid’s clothes were too tight to be concealing a gun, and that was a relief, because out here there would be no witnesses. “Are you the one who called the tiplines?”

“Yes,” said Indrid. He was too calm. Calmer than an innocent person would be, interacting with the police. Joseph supposed that Dahmer hadn’t put up a fight when they arrested him, either. 

“Do you mind if I search your RV?”

“No,” said Indrid, and they walked together across the empty campground. Joseph could hear, now, that Indrid’s voice had been the one on the tapes. The quality of the phone hadn’t conveyed how pleasant he was to listen to.

Joseph didn’t know exactly what he was expecting to find. Souvenirs of murder, a stack of IDs belonging to missing persons. Bleach and trash bags. Bones. But there wasn’t much room to hide stuff in a Winnebago, and Indrid didn’t seem to own anything out of the ordinary. There was a copy of  _ Paradise Island  _ by John Grisham from the Kepler public library on the kitchen table, and a Moleskine journal. Flipping through the unlined pages revealed mostly drawings of trees. 

The fridge was empty save for several cartons of eggnog, but that wasn’t technically a crime. Joseph even lifted up the mattress on the bed, feeling rather foolish as he did it, to find nothing but rusted springs. The tiny closet was filled with thick sweaters and winter coats, the dresser with several identical tank tops and pairs of jeans. The tiny shower was stained with lime, not blood. 

Indrid sat on the couch watching Joseph as he searched. Or at least keeping his head turned in Joseph’s direction. It was hard to tell, what with the glasses. “I apologize for speaking over you, earlier. It’s a bad habit of mine.”

Joseph didn’t know what to say to that. What he did know was that there was no evidence of murder here. “Thank you for your time,” he said. “Mr. Cold.”

“It’s no trouble.” Indrid flashed a smile that was too wide. His teeth were perfectly square and white, the kind of teeth a politician or a real-estate agent might have. “And please, call me Indrid.”

\--

Sorting through Indrid’s trash was disappointing. Nothing but cartons of eggnog and dirty tissues that Joseph didn’t examine too closely. Human nutritional needs meant a fridge full of just eggnog and a trash can with no food waste besides eggnog was not a viable way to live, and thus Joseph deduced that Indrid kept and disposed of his real food at a secondary location.

The most interesting thing was a crumpled page, presumably torn out of the moleskine notebook, upon which someone had drawn two cars colliding head-on. The pencil lines were thick and angry where metal pressed up against metal.

In the hopes of finding something more Joseph spent the next day tailing him. First Indrid went to the grocery store, on his bike, and filled his basket with bottles of eggnog and blue boxes of fruit snacks.

There was a video slot machine at the front of the grocery store, and after Indrid paid for his groceries (if they could be called that) he did a double-take passing it. He stopped, put his bag of food on the ground, and pulled out his wallet. Then he fed some money into the machine and pulled the lever. 

Joseph was almost incredulous. Indrid had not at all seemed like the type of person to be tempted by gambling, though he supposed a diet of fruit snacks and eggnog did not suggest a strong concern for future well-being. 

The wheels in the machine spun, and one, then two, then all three stopped on a gold star. A female voice proclaimed very loudly that Indrid was a winner, music played, the machine flashed even more brightly than it’d been flashing before as it projectile-vomited quarters. Indrid scooped them up and put them in his pockets. He looked embarrassed at the noise and lights, customers and cashiers turning around to watch him. 

Indrid did not load any more money into the machine. Instead he picked up his bags again and headed home, where he stayed for about half an hour before going out again.

Then he went to the Kepler Public Library, which to Stern, used to the library in Washington, D.C., seemed tiny. Indrid went to the nonfiction section, the shelf between 450 and 660, spent a few minutes there, then took a book and sat curled up in an armchair reading it. 

Joseph pulled a book off a nearby shelf at random and sat down in another armchair what he judged was a discreet distance away, and agonized about whether the carton of eggnog Indrid had brought with him and was drinking out of violated the posted library rules, or whether it counted as a “covered beverage.”

\--

Joseph was hiding in the bushes outside the Winnebago, again, when his phone buzzed. “Shit!” He thought he’d put it on silent.

An amber alert. A child, lost in the woods. 

Joseph hadn’t seen Indrid all morning. The Winnebago was dark and silent. He got up and banged on the door. 

No response. Joseph went around and peered through the front window, and saw nothing. Then he sat down on the camper’s steps. He felt sick. A  _ child… _

Nothing for it. He got back in his car and drove to the police station.

The waiting room was full of people talking excitedly. “FBI,” he said, “coming through.” 

“Agent Stern!” said the sheriff when he’d pushed his way to the front desk. “You’ll be proud of us. We found the kid, safe and sound.” 

“What - what happened?”

“Wandered off from his family’s campsite.” The sheriff lowered his voice. “Now, I know there’s not that much you can get out of a three-year-old, but he does say he wasn’t scared because of ‘the big man with wings,’ who apparently gave him fruit snacks.”

Joseph was not particularly good at talking to children. But the kid’s mom did let him interview this one, and he gleaned the following information: he had wandered off from the campsite of his own volition, gotten turned around in the woods, gotten scared, and then the big man with wings had shown up. The big man with wings and black feathers and glowing red eyes. Who had given him a packet of fruit snacks and calmed him down and walked with him almost the whole way back to camp. 

The child had an empty snack-size bag of Welch’s to prove it. 

Joseph thanked the sheriff for his time, and the child and his family. Then he went back out into the woods near where it had happened. “Hello?” he called out into the trees, feeling rather foolish.

He knew who the mothman was. He’d even seen the movie,  _ The Mothman Prophecies,  _ though he hadn’t enjoyed it. If the mothman really did have bad intentions, why would he warn people in advance?

The Greek gods did stuff like that. Warning people before they punished them. Like sending Croesus a dream of his son’s death, or Acrisius the prophecy of his own death at the hands of his grandson. But the collapse of Silver Bridge did not seem divinely caused, and the mothman was not Apollo. 

“Mothman?” called Joseph again. “I think we’re on the same side here!”

Joseph heard nothing but the wind through the trees. He sat down on a log to wait.

Movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. The largest ant he’d ever seen, maybe half an inch long, was walking purposefully along the log towards him. Joseph bent down to examine it. Its black exoskeleton was dusty. 

He was too engrossed in watching it to realize that it was coming too close for his comfort, and when it was almost brushing his hand he leaped up off the log and into what seemed like a solid wall. He turned around, and looked up.

There were shining black feathers, almost purple, like those of a crow, and long mandibles, and glowing red eyes. Joseph took a moment to collect himself, and straightened his jacket. He extended a hand for a handshake, then retracted it after the mothman only stared at him. 

“Agent Joseph Stern,” said the mothman calmly. “You wanted to speak to me, I believe?” He had a blue package of fruit snacks in his hand, which he tore open with clawed fingers. 

“Yes,” said Joseph. “Firstly I’d just like to thank you for… the thing with the child.”

The mothman’s mandibles smacked noisily around the entire packet’s worth of fruit snacks.

“Silver Bridge wasn’t your fault, was it?”

“No,” said the mothman. “Well, in a sense. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Well. I. If there’s anything I can do to help you. As I said, I think we’re on the same side here, and I appreciate all you’ve done.”

“You’re… thanking me?” The mothman’s voice was rather hoarse.

“Yes. I suppose I am.” Stern dug in his pocket for a business card, stamped with his phone number and email and the address of the FBI headquarters in D.C. “Let me give you my card.”

The mothman took it gravely. “Thank you. I foresee we shall see each other again soon, Joseph Stern.” He crumpled the empty bag of fruit snacks in one hand, held the business card carefully in the other, and took off into the air, where he disappeared far too quickly for one so large.

\--

Agent Stern was getting desperate. He didn’t normally do things like this, he told himself as he watched Indrid pedal away. He didn’t normally do things like this, he told himself as he waited in the bushes for fifteen minutes more.

Every day for the past week Indrid had gone to the library at 11am and not returned before 3pm. At 11:20 Joseph crept out of the bushes and looked up and down the road. There was no one there, of course. No other residents of the campsite. 

He patted his pocket for his phone and picked up a rock. Then he walked up the steps of the Winnebago. He gave the doorknob a cursory jiggle, on the off-chance Indrid had left it unlocked, and was absolutely shocked to find that the door opened. 

The Winnebago was dark inside from the paper over the windows. Joseph groped for a lightswitch, didn’t find one, and put one foot inside. 

Then he screamed, because he’d stepped into a loop of rope that promptly tightened and yanked him up by the ankle. Struggling did nothing but cause him to sway weakly. He could push his hands against the floor, but he wasn’t strong enough to meaningfully slacken the rope on his foot. 

And then he heard footsteps. As the blood rushed to Joseph’s head, he squeezed his eyes shut and hoped to die quickly. He just hoped Indrid wouldn’t torture him too much first, or at least that he’d be unconscious for most of it… 

“You and I are cool, but I want you to know that violating anyone’s fourth amendment right to freedom from unlawful search and seizure is a very bad thing to do and I hope you’ll never do it again.”

“I won’t,” moaned Joseph.

“I’m going to get you down now.” 

Joseph opened his eyes and found himself staring at a pair of shoes. Indrid’s shoes. Then he felt a cold hand around his ankle, and the rope suddenly loosening. With unexpected strength, Indrid lowered him gently to the floor. 

Joseph lay on his stomach and thanked God for the clammy tile. 

“Are you alright? I didn’t want to have you upside-down for too long,” said Indrid. 

Joseph pushed himself to all fours and then got to his feet. “You’re under arrest for assaulting a federal agent.”

“Oh, come now.” Indrid was unstringing the rope from the hooks on the ceiling and coiling it around his arm. “Did you hear what I just said about the fourth amendment? If I hadn’t left the door open for you, you would have broken a window.” Indrid shoved the length of rope into a cabinet and fished a piece of laminated paper from between the couch cushions. “Now, I’m about to order takeout for lunch, you want anything? My treat.”

Joseph was not at all sure that he wasn’t about to be murdered. 

“You don’t have to keep following me around,” said Indrid. “I promise I’m much more interesting close-up.”

“Yeah?” Joseph took the takeout menu from Indrid’s hand. It was for the one Chinese place in town. 

“Kepler doesn’t have the widest range of restaurants,” said Indrid apologetically.

“I heard Amnesty Lodge has good food.”

“It does.” Indrid did not elaborate.

Joseph handed back the menu. “I’ll have the sesame beef.”

Indrid nodded. Then he went out of the RV and crossed the campground to the payphone. Joseph followed, half in a daze, disbelieving that this was truly happening to him. 

“Hello,” Indrid was saying into the phone. “I’d like an order of sesame beef and two orders of sweet buns. Yes, I’ll come pick it up. Thank you.” Then he hung up the phone. “Are you volunteering to drive, or am I going on my bike?”

“I’ll drive.”

Indrid nodded placidly and followed Joseph to his car.

“Where am I going?”

“Corner of fourth and West. Turn right here.”

“Have you been following the cases?” said Joseph after a few moments of silence. He could see the restaurant’s lit-up sign on the corner. 

“No,” said Indrid as Joseph pulled up to the curb. “I’ll just be a moment.” Then he got out and went inside the restaurant.

This wasn’t happening. There was no way this was happening. Indrid came out with a bag and got back in the car. “The trial of Ed Murray started yesterday,” said Joseph conversationally.

“Oh?” 

“He claims someone else broke into his house, killed his wife, and buried her in the basement.”

Indrid hummed in noncommittal acknowledgement.

“Have you ever broken into anyone’s house?”

“No. Have you?”

“Not into a house. I sort of broke into my school when I was in high school once.”

“What happened?”

“I sat next to this guy in first-period AP Government, and every class we fought over which of us got the seat by the window. Eventually we agreed that whoever showed up first the next day would get that seat for the rest of the year. So I stayed late and jammed one of the back doors of the school so it wouldn’t lock, and I showed up at four in the morning so I would be sure to be first.”

“But it didn’t matter,” Indrid breathed. 

“No. He showed up late that day; he didn’t really care about the seat. I felt so pathetic, that I’d done all this work and felt like some kind of cat-burglar for nothing.”

Indrid nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. And now at least I know my work matters.”

They ate sitting on the steps of the Winnebago, the styrofoam container of food floppy on Joseph’s knees. 

“I… know what it’s like,” said Indrid without turning his head. He stared straight ahead into the campground. It was noon, and the trees cast only the narrowest shadows. “I’m not so good with people, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. It’s why I live out here all alone.”

Joseph shook his head. Not being good with people wasn’t an excuse for  _ killing  _ anyone.

\--

Joseph did take Indrid up on his invitation to follow close-up instead of at a distance. He spent a week sitting next to him in the library instead of three seats away, or on the couch in the RV instead of out in the bushes.

Now he had enough time to memorize what Indrid’s face looked like up close. And he wondered, of course he did, whether that was the face of a killer after all. Did the thin hands that now held a pencil once wipe spattered blood off his delicate cheekbones? Were Indrid’s cocked head and quirk of a smile the last thing someone had ever seen? A hundred someones?

Even with unprecedented access to his suspect, Joseph had no leads. He wanted the mothman to come ask him for help. He would much rather take orders from a beast with red eyes for once than someone like Hayes, a human no smarter or braver or wiser than himself. 

Joseph thought so much about how the mothman would come for him that it happened first in dreams. It was pouring rain, in this dream, huge droplets driving craters into the mud and hammering on the roof of the Motel 6. 

Red eyes appeared like tail-lights in the window of Joseph’s room. He pulled on his coat and his shoes and went out to him. “I need your help,” the mothman whispered underneath the drumming rain. 

And so Joseph drove, following those eyes through the darkness like a beacon. He drove off the main road and onto a dirt track, tires churning, and the headlights of his dream-car illuminated something horrifying.

The car sloshed to a stop and Joseph leaped out, sank to his ankles in the sucking mud. It was a corpse, Joseph knew inexorably, splayed arms and legs carved out of marble. There was a crunch of glass beneath his feet as he sleepwalked forward. He’d stepped on Indrid’s discarded glasses.

Yes, this was Indrid, that was Indrid’s nose and lips, face too bare without his glasses, his collarbones jutting beneath his wet-transparent shirt. 

“What do you need me to do?” said Joseph, bile rising up in his throat.

The mothman stood impassive, a looming specter of death, arms folded across his chest. “I need you to kill him.”

“But he’s already-”

And then the corpse beneath them was alive again, gasping, eyes flying open. Indrid’s hands were the hands of a drowned person, wet and freezing cold. Joseph didn’t know what color Indrid’s eyes were, he’d never seen them, but this fantasy had made them blue, too blue. Those weren’t Indrid’s eyes. Those were Joseph’s own. 

Joseph didn’t have his gun on him. If he was going to do as the mothman had ordered he’d have to do it with his hands. 

His alarm clock spared him finding out if he would obey or not.

\--

Hayes had considered spending this much time with Indrid satisfactory progress. If Indrid was as prolific a killer as his potential victim-count suggested, he was insatiable, unable to control himself, and if Joseph waited long enough, the cover would slip.

Today was a step backwards. Indrid had said he had an errand to run and so Joseph was back in the bushes. Indrid stepped out of the trailer, pockets bulging with who-knew-what. Then he started up the narrow dirt trail that led from the campground into the woods. Joseph followed at a safe distance, following the path and the noise of Indrid’s progress. 

After a quarter of a mile or so Indrid veered purposefully off the path and started clomping through the underbrush proper. This was definitely a violation of the park rules. Was he going to wherever he kept his trophies? Some cache of evidence out in the backcountry? 

No. What Indrid found was a child, a little girl in a pink raincoat, even though it wasn’t raining. She was standing there alone, crying so hard she didn’t notice Indrid six feet away from her. Indrid turned on his heel and stared directly through the trees at Joseph. His blood ran cold. He was too far away to do anything. 

Indrid cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “Joseph! I know you’re there, get over here.”

Sheepishly, Joseph picked his way through the underbrush towards him. The girl stopped crying, probably out of sheer surprise, and looked from one to the other of them. “Who are you?” she said. 

“This is Special Agent Joseph Stern of the FBI,” said Indrid. “He’s going to take you back to your parents.”

“Do you have a badge?” said the child.

Joseph sighed and dug it out of his jacket.

“Can I touch it?”

“Sure, fine.” He handed his badge over. Indrid was smirking.

“I’ll, ah, let you take the glory on this one,” said Indrid, smirking, and walked back into the woods the way he’d come.

“Do you know which campground you belong at?” said Joseph to the child.

“It had a big blue metal box.”

“The bear-box?”

“Uhh…”

Joseph thought he knew which campground she was talking about. It was south of where they were, and he’d been keeping pretty good track with the sun. He shaded his hand to look up. It was about ten in the morning, which meant that south was… that way. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll get you back to your parents. And if we get lost, the mothman can always come give us fruit snacks.”

The girl handed back his badge, which was now for some reason sticky, and put her hand -  _ also  _ sticky - in his. “You’re weird,” she said.

“You’re telling me.”

\--

They were sitting in the Winnebago. Indrid was wrapped in a blanket, with his feet in their fuzzy socks pressed right up against the space heater. 

Joseph knew for a fact that Hayes had once slept with the wife of an informant, and socializing with a possible serial killer was definitely not as bad as that. Probably.

Speaking of the serial killer thing. Joseph had been looking at his notes, and the crimes that Indrid knew too much about… it didn’t make sense. Two of them had happened on the same day, three states apart. Or in 1943. And though Indrid’s age was indeterminate, he definitely was not old enough to be murdering grown men with axes during World War II. 

Indrid looked up from his sketchpad. He was smirking. “I sense that you have a question for me that I will find amusing.”

Joseph swallowed and glanced towards the door. He was pretty confident that he could escape if Indrid attacked him. “How do you know about the ones you didn’t commit?”

Indrid started laughing before he finished saying it,  _ giggling,  _ really, an unsettling high-pitched sound. The hairs on the back of Joseph’s neck stood on end. 

“Sorry,” said Indrid, pushing up his glasses just enough to wipe his eyes - brown. His eyes were brown. “I thought by now you’d figured out that I didn’t do any of them. I have never  _ physically  _ killed anyone in my life.”

“Wha- what?”

“I mean of course I was a suspect at first, Joseph, but  _ really.  _ I literally do not own any knives.”

“Holy shit.” Joseph stood up and started yanking open drawers in the Winnebago’s tiny kitchen. There was a jumble of plastic cutlery, packets of fast-food sauce, and many many paper packets of sugar, but no knives. Not one.

“You searched the Winnebago the day we met, remember?”

“Yes but the next day I saw you carrying boxes in here! I thought that’s where you kept all your murder mementos!”

“Oh, those. Yes. There were a few things that would have caused a hassle if you’d seen them.” Indrid went to the back of the Winnebago, opened the door to his bedroom. “Come in, then.”

Joseph followed incredulously. Indrid’s bedroom was an absolute mess of papers, bed unmade, dresser drawers hanging open, and it was dark, too, blinds drawn and curtains shut tight. Indrid bent to drag two taped-up cardboard boxes out from the other side of the bed into the main room. Then he scrabbled at the tape with his fingernails, trying to peel it off. “I should think about buying a knife,” he said.

Finally he got one of the boxes open, and Joseph leaned over his shoulder. It was full of paper, torn-out pages from the Moleskine notebooks Indrid spent the day drawing in. And they were all covered in drawings. The top few were unlabeled portraits of people who looked familiar but Joseph couldn’t quite place. And then there was a desolate, pebbly beach, a clearing in the woods - and yes, that was a corpse, judging by the angle of the limbs, and every image seemed so familiar.

Indrid indicated the smiling face of a woman. “Siyana Murray,” he said. The curve of a tent’s roof, grayscale between dark leaves. “Rahul Wheeler.”

Then Joseph remembered where he’d seen all these scenes before, all these faces. These were the missing. He knew these faces from candid shots and school photos, these places from crime-scene photos and the times he’d visited them himself. 

“You’re an amateur sleuth,” said Joseph. “That’s how you knew. You figured it out yourself.” It didn’t make total sense, how the hell could Indrid know where in a basement a woman was buried, but it made better sense than the alternative.

“I suppose you could call it that,” said Indrid. 

Joseph sat down on Indrid’s bed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m so, so glad you aren’t a killer.” The light of the bedroom was too dim to tell for sure, but he thought Indrid had gone faintly pink. “Uh. Because if you were, I’d be an absolutely terrible investigator for not finding evidence of it.”

“Right. Of course.”

\--

Joseph submitted his report later that night. Indrid was an unusually gifted amateur sleuth. Soon Hayes would reassign Joseph to a new case, a new killer, a new location. 

But tonight, he was still in Kepler, and in his restlessness he walked. He walked along the highway from the Motel 6 until he came to a bridge, and made it halfway across before he noticed the mothman, silhouetted against the stars, standing on a crossbeam a hundred feet up. 

Joseph stopped and watched as the mothman took flight. His wingbeats were silent under the rushing of the river below, but his eyes shone through the darkness like twin lighthouse beams. 

Down by the bed of the bridge, down where Joseph was standing, there was a pair of glasses with red lenses sitting on the rusted railing. 

Joseph’s heart stopped. He knew those glasses. Indrid’s glasses. Joseph leaned over the railing, and there was nothing but blackness underneath, dark like the mouth of a giant that breathed the sound of rushing water. He had never once seen Indrid without his glasses.

The mothman circled raptorlike overhead. It would be an easy thing for him to kill someone like Indrid, one shove of those muscular monster-arms and Indrid would be tumbling over the railing, hitting the water with a  _ crack.  _

He had thought Indrid was innocent. But if the mothman disagreed, perhaps Joseph had been wrong. Perhaps he’d been growing fonder of a killer all along. 

The mothman alit on the sidewalk just ahead of Joseph. His black feathers gleamed in the orange glow of a streetlight.

Joseph gestured to the glasses. “Did you… kill him?” he choked out.

The mothman cocked his head, and then let out something that might be a laugh. Moths did not make sounds that humans could hear. They beat their wings and were silent. But sometime between 1967 and now, this one had learned to make himself understood.

“No, Joseph.” The mothman picked up the glasses and unfolded them. “I  _ am  _ him.” And he slipped the glasses over his face, red lenses over red eyes, and then, as cleanly as two clips of film edited together, there was Indrid, a skinny man with goose-pimples rising on his bare arms from the chill of the evening.

Joseph tackled him in a hug. “I thought you were  _ dead,”  _ he said into Indrid’s shoulder.

Indrid hugged him back gingerly. Seconds stretched, and Joseph did not pull away. Indrid blinked behind his glasses. 

“God,” said Joseph. “Indrid, I thought you were dead and now you’re here and I don’t want to let go of you.”

“I think your opinion of me has improved so significantly in the past day that you may be exaggerating my appeal.”

Joseph had an aunt who lived in California and raised chickens in her backyard, and he’d visited her as a child and played with those hens, buried his nose in their orange feathers and smelled sawdust and corn feed and bird. He’d never been close enough to discern it before, but that’s what Indrid smelled like. Like feathers.

Joseph breathed that smell in now, felt the warmth of Indrid’s limbs, and then realized what he was doing. Clutching an almost-stranger to his breast. He let go of Indrid abruptly and took two steps back, cleared his throat. “Um. I’m sorry, that was inappropriate of me. I’m. Glad you’re not dead.”

Indrid’s mouth was open. Unbeknownst to the human in front of him, futures spun like the wheels on a slot machine. 

He had been very good at being the court seer of Silvain. Arguably better than he was at being a strange man who lived in an RV in Kepler, West Virginia. His detachment had been an asset, there; he reported what he saw to the interpreter and the court unquestioning, without trying to interfere himself. He did not see it as his responsibility to interfere. 

And for years and years on Earth, he also did not interfere, or tell anyone about his visions at all. The future lived in his head and then on paper that he later recycled. 

The first vision he’d ever hidden from the interpreter, back in Silvain, was the vision of himself leaving. In those days, as an aristocrat with heavy rings on his fingers and colorful scarves in all the textures he could stand around his neck, he couldn’t imagine why he would choose to live on Earth instead.

He got that feeling again when he saw himself calling the tipline. He didn’t know why he would do it, given that it would bring nothing but trouble upon himself, but it would also help people, far more reliably than trying to prevent a bridge-collapse would. 

Indrid closed the distance between them once again. Not nothing but trouble. Trouble, and this. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi thank you for reading my weird shit, hit me up on tumblr @bellafarallones


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